


The Nutcracker Suite

by leonidaslion



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2011-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:41:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: music box, dark side</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nutcracker Suite

Dean has no way of keeping track of time, but it feels like he’s been here for months. That has to be wrong, though: must be his own mind, and the darkness, and the endless refrain of that fucking song echoing over and over until his skin _(does he have skin here? it feels like he does)_ is humming with it. Sam wouldn’t leave him here that long. He _wouldn’t._

Dean’s sweating. He has no idea how he’s managing that particular trick: ever since he woke up in that pink, rotting canopy bed, he’s been plagued by a deep, bone-aching chill. Then again, nothing makes any sense here.

The rooms in this place are always changing: constantly shifting with her moods and whims. What is down one moment is up the next, and if Dean turns his back on a wall for too long he’ll turn around and find a door there, or a gaping void leading nowhere at all, or one of those life-size ballerina dolls that are always popping up out of nowhere and scaring the crap out of him.

Dean glances over his shoulder now, checking, and this room is still safe enough—still _normal_ enough—that he knows she’s somewhere distant. Bitch’ll be back soon, though, so he has to make every second count. Licking his lips, he runs his fingers over the blank wall in front of him, searching for any sign of a crack.

“Sammy,” he whispers roughly. “Stop jerking off and get me the fuck out of here.”

There’s no response, of course: never is. Dean can’t keep himself from trying, though, and he isn’t sure anymore whether it’s out of stubbornness or stupidity. Probably a little of both.

“Sure are taking your sweet time, asshole,” he grumbles, and pounds his fist against the wall in frustration.

The music skips like a scratched record and Dean’s breath catches. He holds himself still until the flutes and the horns and the piano start up again. It only takes a few seconds, and he prays that she was too preoccupied to notice. When he first got here—when the bitch fucking hijacked his soul and yanked him in between the spaces of things: into the dark—Dean shouted and pounded on the walls and basically made as big a ruckus as he could.

It didn’t take long for the bitch to get it through his thick skull that she didn’t appreciate the noise.

He glances over his shoulder again and freezes, one corner of his lip lifting in something that looks more like an animal’s cornered snarl than any human expression.

The plain, dull room he was in a moment ago is gone. Now the far wall is lined with floor to ceiling mirrors, and there’s a wooden dancer’s bar running from one end to the other. A line of those creepy ass, life-size ballerina dolls are at the bar, positioned in various attitudes that Dean thinks would be impossible to maintain if they were real. Their frilly white tutus stir slightly in an unfelt breeze.

“What are you doing?”

The voice is sweet and lilting—curious instead of threatening—but Dean’s heart stutters in his chest anyway. He pushes himself more firmly against the wall, like he can melt through it and back into the real world where his body is waiting for him.

“Well?” the bitch prods, stepping into the room that has become a dance studio. She’s wearing her human face—the one she had when she was alive—and Dean’s stomach is really fucking grateful for the perfect yellow ringlets and the flawless, creamy skin. For those bow lips and the upturned nose and cornflower blue eyes.

“Just, uh, looking around,” he lies.

The bitch comes closer, casting a disinterested glance at the line of doll dancers before returning her attention to him. “I’m bored,” she announces.

All of the spit in Dean’s mouth dries up. He tries to remember what she said she was wandering off to do when she finished with him last time and for a horrible, endless moment, blanks completely. Then he notices the clump of dark grey fur in her tiny hand and everything comes back.

Forcing a wobbly smile on his face, he coaxes, “You don’t want to play with Jack anymore?” He feels sort of guilty for pushing her back in the dog’s direction, but he isn’t even sure that it’s a real dog _(do dogs even have souls to grab?)_ and he doesn’t know how much more of this he can handle. Jack’s just gonna have to take one for the team.

The bitch frowns down at her hand and then drops the clump of fur. “He rotted,” she says matter-of-factly. “Got my costume all dirty. Look.”

She goes up on her tiptoes and spins around in a wobbly pirouette and yeah, now Dean can see the brown stains on the pink leotard. His stomach lurches and he wipes one hand across his mouth. When he speaks, his voice comes out in a faint rasp.

“Why don’t you go change?”

She pouts up at him. “But Daddy, I'm the sugar plum fairy. I can’t be the sugar plum fairy without my costume.”

 _I’m not your fucking father!_ Dean wants to yell, but he knows better. Things are fucked up, but they can get worse. They can get really fucking bad unless he’s careful and keeps his mouth shut.

Her face clears as Dean tries to come up with the words that will send her anywhere but here, and she offers him a brilliant smile. It’s only slightly spoiled by the green mold growing between her teeth.

“I know! You can brush my hair and tell me a story, and then you can give me a horsy ride. Doesn’t that sound like fun, Daddy?”

Behind her, the mirrors have gone cloudy and shadowed. The ballerinas aren’t dolls anymore but corpses, decaying and dripping fluid onto the floor. Dean presses his eyes shut, but the sight is as familiar by now as the song filling the frigid air and they’re still there on the backside of his eyelids: staring at him. Not dolls anymore, not figments of some dead girl’s imagination, but the sorry remnants of other people the bitch pulled into the dark side of forever.

Some of those women are still alive in the world outside of the music box. They’re lying comatose in hospital beds that he and Sam visited and made sympathetic noises over, and sometimes Dean can’t help but wonder if their souls are still aware here. If they’re awake inside those rotting shells: if they ever peer out at him from plastic eyes. He wonders if they’re screaming for help.

Or maybe just screaming.

Small arms, still plump with baby fat, wrap around his waist as the bitch hugs him. Dean clutches the wall with one hand and gingerly _(gotta keep her calm: keep her happy)_ pats her head with the other. Her hair feels stringy beneath his fingers, and her skull squishes. Something wets Dean’s shirt and pants and he makes a low, disgusted noise in the back of his throat. She’s fucking _leaking_ on him.

“I’m so glad that I found you,” the bitch says. The words come out wet and clumsy. Dean wonders in an absent, half-horrified way whether the worms are back or if the tip of her tongue has just fallen out again. “Mommy wouldn’t stay. She wasn’t nice to me and she wouldn’t stay. She didn’t love me enough. But you do, don’t you, Daddy? You love me forever and ever.”

Dean knows what she wants, but the words stick in his throat.

“Don’t you?” she insists, tightening her hold on him.

Pain blossoms where her fingers are digging into the small of his back, but it’s the feel of flesh sloughing off those delicate bones that makes Dean blurt out, “Yes. I love you, I—I’m glad you found me too, h-honey.”

“And you want to tell me a story and brush my hair and play horsyback with me, don’t you?”

Oh God, please no. Not when she’s like this. Dean thinks he’ll go mad if he has to drag a brush through those wispy strands of hair. If he has to watch chunks of skin come out beneath the brush’s bristles and drop into his lap.

If he gets out of this, he isn’t touching a music box ever again. Not fucking _ever_.

“Yeah,” he chokes out.

“You’re the bestest Daddy ever!” she giggles, stepping back.

The hand that tugs him away from the wall feels solid again, but Dean figures he’ll keep his eyes shut as long as she lets him. Just in case.


End file.
